October Writing Challenge 2017
by lunarchroniclesandcockatiels
Summary: Thirty one drabbles about love. Written for burnt up feeling's October 2017 Writing Challenge.
1. Chapter 1

_1\. a girl falls_

.~.

She is teetering on the edge of a cliff when Percy spots her.

 _How are you?_ his eyes ask, not daring to say the words allowed. After all, she is only as opaque as a window, and he can look right into her.

"I didn't know it would hurt this badly," she whispers, answering the question that never needed to be answered. But somehow speaking has a soothing rhythm to it, and once she starts, she can't stop.

 _Hot, sleepless, summer nights, she thinks. Back when she was two and_ they _would sit on the porch swing together, rocking gently._

" _There's Hercules," her father would point and the stars would somehow come to life, forming this complicated puzzle that somehow turned specks of light into things._

He doesn't know what to say. She can see it in his eyes. Perhaps she is out in the open, but love is blind, so what can he possibly see?

"Annabeth-" he reaches out towards her.

"I told myself it wouldn't hurt when he died," she has lied to herself, and it has created a hole inside of her. "I didn't think I would care. Why do I care so much?"

"He was your _father_." the words are strained, hurting, like words often are. Percy reaches for her arm. She lets him have it.

"But I didn't care." She lets a single tear fall down her cheek, the memory of a lost childhood.

"Because you were afraid?" the words strike her, push her off the cliff. And she falls. _The girl falls._

She is sobbing in his arms now. "I didn't know it would hurt this badly, Percy. Why does love hurt?"


	2. Chapter 2

_Love only hurts_

Right now, Percy's arms are shaking. It is subtle, and he doubts it is even visible, but it is still there. The tiny tremor in his muscles as the nurse lets him hold his baby daughter for the very first time.

She is so tiny that it takes his breath away. Beautiful though, too, with tiny patches of dark brown hair beginning to grow in and grey eyes that are finally open.

"She's a fighter," the nurse says.

"Yes," he breathes, looking down at Zoë. Her fingers are curled around his thumb, and her eyes are closed yet again. Percy wonders if she's sleeping.

The time passes much too quickly, and soon the nurse is back to take her away again, to place her in the small incubator that she so desperately needs to survive.

He would give _anything_ for her to be better; to get bigger and not be so small and sickly anymore.

He loves her so much that it hurts, a pain in is heart that will never leave him. One that can not be taken away by doctors and medication.

Love only hurts, doesn't it? It is the most beautiful thing in the world, yet it too comes with a price.

 _Having your heart broken. Losing. Despair._

But somehow it is worth it.

 **A/N: Thank you for the reviews! This oneshot has to do with my story _Give and Take_ , so if you like this, please go check it out!**


	3. Chapter 3

_a fire spreads_

She was losing her mind in the way a fire spreads: slowly, yet it is unpredictable.

It all happened too fast. That's her excuse for herself, her shortcomings, her craziness. One day Travis was there, buying her blueberry muffins (always two. "You're eating for two now, Katie," he would say) and making her breakfast in bed. The next he wasn't. It's as simple as that, yet Katie is trapped.

 _It all happened so fast_...

She keeps seeing him appearing in doorways. His reflection is in the bathroom mirror before she goes to turn on the light.

At night, all of her dreams have become nightmares. At first she tries to ignore it, tries to ignore everything, but she finds she can't. Not anymore.

It used to be that he would disappear for moments of blissful agony, but not anymore. No, now he never leaves, just follows her around all day, doing exactly what he used to.

"Why don't you ever leave me alone?" she whispers, but he never seems to understand. She spends most of he day talking to silence that never replies, except to her.

 _Get a hold of yourself, Katie. You're seven and a half months pregnant. Travis is gone. Get used to being alone._

And yet she can't. She is swimming -drowning, really- and this is the real world. There is no lifeguard waiting to pull her out. There is no Travis. Travis is gone.

Travis is gone. She repeats it over and over in her head, hoping to find some meaning from it, but if there is any, she can never find it.

Travis is gone. Yet she is with him every waking moment of the day.

Travis is gone. She saw him get hit by the bus, didn't she? She vaguely remembers a funeral, but how can that be true if he's sitting next to her right now, full of smiles and pranks and everything that she fell in love with twelve years ago when he put chocolate bunnies on the roof of her cabin.

Travis is gone. No, Travis is here. She is not losing her mind.

She is not.

 _It all happened so fast..._


	4. Chapter 4

_nostalgia hits_

Nostalgia hits, and he finds himself longing for the good old days, when the world was solid beneath his feet and he had a good hold on life. Not the way it is now, with him not knowing where to put his feet or how to hold on.

When he thinks about it, it is always his days at Harvard that make the most sense. Frederick sometimes longs for the scheduled days of college and graduate school, and for Athena, who was the smartest person he had ever met.

She was from Greece, she'd told him, when he was in high school and still applying to colleges. They clicked instantly. He was the nerdy, somewhat distant, kid on the track team that got an almost perfect score on his SATs. She was the girl who appeared out of nowhere with advice for his college applications and who helped him win scholarships.

And then they went to Harvard. They were together almost constantly; she went everywhere with him. They weren't "Frederick" and "Athena," they were "FrederickandAthena." She helped him with his homework, he taught her other things, like how to dance. They would watch movies together, sitting on the couch, eating microwave popcorn.

All that changed very suddenly.

"I have to leave soon," she told him, quite sullenly. They were walking to class together.

"Why?" he asked. Of course he knew they were graduating, but the minute he stepped foot in Harvard, she was always there. She was the one constant thing in his crazy life.

"You won't believe me," she said sadly, fingering her owl-shaped earrings.

"Of course I will," he told her.

"No, you won't. You'll think I'm crazy."

"That's not true."

"Fine, then," she held an air of confidence as the words slipped out of her mouth. "I'm a Greek Goddess."

"Okay," he was a bit stunned. "Really?"

"Yes," she said, her cheeks growing a little pink. "Why would I lie?"

He stared at her, thinking. Contemplating.

It took a moment, but he believed her. She was his best friend. She wouldn't lie to him. Lying was below her. Unless of course, she really was insane.

"You didn't think to tell me earlier?" he questioned. "Athena, I told you everything."

"Well, I'm telling you now," she sighed. "Aren't I?"

"But you lied to me," he cried. "For as long as I've known you, you've lied to me!" He felt like a child who has just discovered the truth about the tooth fairy.

"Frederick, be civilised," he finally knew where the power in her stormy grey eyes he had so often joked about came from. "You of all people should be able to understand that it was for your own good."

"For my own good?" he could hardly contain himself. "Athena, I've been living a lie!"

"You're just like all the rest, Frederick," she mused. "Brilliant, yet so simple,"

"All the rest?" The pain in his eyes was visible. "I'm what, then? Just one in a a line of many people that you disappointed?" Her eyes flashed.

"Do not speak about what you do not know, Frederick," she said, hurt herself. He felt the tears come to his eyes, stream down his face, but for once, he did nothing to stop them.

"Athena, _I_ -" She put a finger to his mouth gently.

"Don't say it," she told him quietly, an odd change from her loud voice only moments ago.

"I love you," he whispered against her warning. In that moment, he was nothing and neither was she.


End file.
